Top Score

By Emily Reese

To listen to an audio podcast, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to download and subscribe to podcasts.

Description

Some of the scores for video games are incredibly intricate and deserve recognition, which is why we've created Top Score: a series of podcasts dedicated to the music that accompanies soldiers through battle, sorcerers through forests and aliens through space.

Name

Description

Released

Price

1

CleanTop Score: SonicPicnic and Awesomenauts

The soundtrack for the game 'Awesomenauts' sounds like an alien radio station. The music was created by a group of composers who call themselves SonicPicnic.

Composer Ryan Ike got his first big break in video-game composition by answering an open call for composers on Twitter for a game called 'Gunpoint'. He got the job -- and a BAFTA nomination. Hear more about Ryan Ike on this week's episode of Top Score.

Millions of people around the world play the 'casual' game Candy Crush Soda Saga, but composer Johan Holmstrom took the music very seriously, even recruiting the London Symphony Orchestra for the recording session. Holmstrom is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

Ryan Thompson is a PhD candidate in musicology at the University of Minnesota, with a special interest in ludomusicology. What is that, you ask? Ludomusicology is a growing field in which musicologists study the impact of music in video games.

The new game 'Spartan Strike' exists in an audio-dominant world. To make sure he could still capture a player's attention, composer Tom Salta decided to record quieter, more subtle cues. He also enlisted the help of the New York Film Chorale and the Macedonian Radio Symphonic Orchestra. Hear more about it on this week's episode of Top Score.

Top Score says "thank you" to production assistant Pierce Huxtable for one year of great work. Pierce's position was funded by a (non-renewable) grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, an award for which Top Score is forever grateful.

Michael Schiciano joins Emily Reese on this week's Top Score to talk about old-school and modern approaches to composing. Thanks to the burgeoning mobile market, many composers use old-school techniques to create music for smartphone games.

The orchestral-rock video game cover band Do a Barrel Roll stopped by Classical MPR to record a set and to chat with Emily Reese, host of Top Score. 'They played a set and stole my heart -- I've always wanted to say that,' Emily says. Listen to the full session.

Completely self taught, Sam Dillard not only composes music, but he also performs and records his work. Recently hired by Kinect for its new Harry Potter trailer, Dillard joins Emily Reese on this week's episode of Top Score.

The enduring success of composer Chris Huelsbeck's early works has created a fan following in his native Germany and across the world. His work inspired a 2008 concert series, and more recently, he's crowd-funded a new album of piano works. Learn more about Chris Huelsbeck on this week's Top Score.

Chicago-based composer John Robert Matz isn't strictly a video-game music creator. He also writes for concert band. On this week's Top Score, Matz talks about these different works and their distinct styles. He also shares some 'sneak peaks' into tracks from the upcoming 'Fossil Echo.'

The director of music recording and scoring at Skywalker Sound, Leslie Ann Jones oversees all sound production in the facilities massive scoring stage. Jones has worked on films, television and video games, and has three Grammys to boot, which she simply calls 'pretty cool'. Hear more about Jones's amazing career on this week's Top Score.

What started out as a one-gig quartet for Chad Schwartz's senior recital has grown into a touring, viable music group. All four members of Triforce Quartet are classically trained musicians and avid gamers. Schwartz talks to Top Score host Emily Reese about the chamber-music group.

On this week's Top Score, Emily Reese talks with composer Paul Ruskay, who created the soundtrack for 'Homeworld Remastered'. He explains how he brought the soundtrack back to life from its original version, composed 15 years ago.

On a recent trip to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Emily stopped by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to learn more about the new Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) program. Learn about and hear performances from the SFCM on this week's Top Score.

Composer Daniel Sadowski possesses that rare ability to see music in color, so when he was asked to compose music for the vivid game 'Stormthrone', it was a dream come true. Daniel Sadowski is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

Do men and women compose differently? Is there such thing as 'masculine' or 'feminine' music? Is defining music that way inherently sexist? This week's episode of Top Score asks some tough questions with composer Penka Kouneva.

Composing duo Brian Trifon and Brian Lee White (aka Finishing Move) met with Top Score host Emily Reese to discuss the game Massive Chalice and the challenges it posed to them. They also share pointers for other collaborative composers.

Composer Marios Aristopoulos has scored the video game, 'Apotheon', a game set in ancient Greece that combines Grecian art styles and 2D platform gameplay. Marios spoke to Emily Reese on this week's Top Score.

In creating the soundtrack for 'Assassin's Creed Unity: Dead Kings', composer Cris Velasco used traditional sounds, including arpeggios, counterpoint and harpsichord to create music to fit the game's 18th-century setting.

The California-based composer and violinist has spent significant time living and working in Alaska. He still draws inspiration from the beauty and solitude of the North. Jeff is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

Composer Billy Martin is known for writing soundtracks with comedic and with jazz elements. This week on Top Score, Emily Reese talks to Martin about his work, and we hear samples of two very different soundtracks.

To compose the music for 'The Order: 1886', Jason Graves removed instruments that don't carry a heavy sound. Violins and high woodwinds were thrown out, and violas and cellos doubled up. Learn more about it on this week's episode of Top Score.

A highly versatile composer, Winifred Phillips has created music for the ever-adorable 'LittleBigPlanet 3' and for the brutal 'Assassin's Creed III: Liberation'. She recently pulled off a five-minute fugue for 'The Ziggurat', voicing 12 vocal parts herself. Phillips is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

To create a reactive soundtrack for the five simultaneous players of 'Evolve', composer Jason Graves created hundreds of short pieces of music. And he used some creative instrumentation to get the desired results. Jason Graves is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

When composer Peter McConnell finished scoring the video game 'Grim Fandango' 1998, he asked people living in his neighborhood to be the instrumentalists. For this year's 'Grim Fandango' re-release, McConnell recruited the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Composer Peter McConnell is the guest on this week's Top Score.

For composer Ben Prunty, the glamour of scoring video games did not come without effort. While working alternately as a janitor, Google diagnostician and volunteer coordinator, he received a call from the developers of the new game, Faster Than Light (FTL). They asked for a score, and Ben's life changed forever. Ben is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

For the latest 'Borderlands' release, the game's developers wanted a new sound. Their instruction to composer Jesper Kyd was simple: Bring back the '80s. Kyd is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

It's possible to turn on your TV and find a show scored by Silas. The commercial break could then include his work. If you want a movie, there are more than 14 that include his music. Video games afterward? Silas still has you covered. Composer Silas Hite is the guest on this week's Top Score.

Top Score, which is part of the Infinite Guest podcast network, is counting down the best game soundtracks of 2014. A score's creativity, ingenuity, execution, and implementation were all taken into account.

Indie game developers White Paper Games took on a seemingly impossible project for an untested, six-member team. They wanted to create a free-roaming, first-person puzzle game set in the surreal, disjointed mind of a woman with dementia. This project presented White Paper Games's composer, NJ Apostol, with a tremendous challenge -- and his score rose to the occasion.

Trevor Morris received his first commission at 13 years old, when he wrote a song for the Pope. Now, Morris's commissions are for the 'Dragon Age' video games. Morris is Emily Reese's guest on this week's Top Score.

Composers Joe Henson and Alexis Smith form a composing duo called The Flight. They've been working together on music for more than 20 years, including video games. Henson and Smith speak to Emily Reese on this week's episode of Top Score.

Composer Garry Schyman always seems to be pushing the bounds of video game music. With help from the Seattle Symphony and the amazing acoustics of the Bastyr chapel, Schyman takes some creative liberties with his 'Shadow of Mordor' game soundtrack.

To call Neal Acree's fan base "passionate" would be a gross understatement. As a contributing composer for World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo III, Video Games Live, and the Stargate series, some of his listeners seem to live and breathe their respective media.

This episode features a nerd-filled interview and some truly lovely live-recorded video game music. From Marble Madness to early Metroid to a rocking series of solos in Dr. Mario, we hope you enjoy our time with NES.

Hard-working composer Andrew Aversa shares his various experiences writing music for video games, and he also invites aspiring composers to get in touch with him for feedback and advice. Listen to the interview with this busy -- and very nice -- composer.

A fascinating man with a deeply genuine love of music, Oleksa Lozowchuk is best known in the video-game world for scoring the humorous and addicting 'Dead Rising 3'. This week on Top Score, he speaks to Emily Reese about his album 'Bright Sadness' and about his many musical influences and interests.

Several years ago, a five-minute conversation took Lisbeth Scott from being a part-time singer and musician in a dance studio to performing in a soundtrack for Hans Zimmer, a titan of the industry ... and she didn't know who he was at the time. She only went up from there.

Laura Intravia's life is something out of a video game music lover's dream. Carving her path by transcribing scores and performing in costume, Intravia is making an indelible impression on the video game music circuit.

Cellist Tina Guo is best known for shredding on her electric cello. But the lonely, meditative sonority of a video game soundtrack shows the depth of her playable emotion. Cellist Tina Guo discusses her intense classical upbringing and modern musical rebellion on Top Score.

Nearly 75 years after the film debuted, Disney is bringing 'Fantasia' back in a new game called 'Fantasia: Music Evolved'. Composer Inon Zur wrote original music for the game, and oversaw the re-recordings of many classical favorites.

In 1991, a group of five programmers gathered around a computer. They wanted to create a new kind of game that would tell a new kind of story, pushing technology to its limits. This week, hear the story of Myst on Top Score.

Imagine yourself in a stadium filled with 70,000 fans. That's how many video game fans travel to Seattle during Labor Day weekend for the PAX Prime video game convention. I'll be there hosting a panel called Maestros of Video Games.

Composer Cris Velasco recently finished music for 'Company of Heroes 3: Western Front Armies'. It marks the third time he's scored a World War II-themed game. This project focuses on the Western Front and the Battle of the Bulge. It's on this week's Top Score.

Summer camp. The words bring back memories of warm days, making friends ... and alien invasions? That's the case for students of Minneapolis's Composing For Video Games camp. Find out more about the campers' boundless creativity and hear some of their work on Classical MPR's Top Score.

Emily Reese, host of Top Score, recently spent a weekend in Boston with 70,000 video game enthusiasts at the PAX East Conference. In this week's episode of Top Score, Emily Reese shares some of her experiences and fun finds from PAX East.

The art in To the Moon is deceptively simple. With blocky graphics, it's a lot like an Impressionist painting up close. But as you sit back, the images come alive. Kan Gao's atmosphere score is much the same.

Composer Lorne Balfe wrote music for the game Beyond: Two Souls , which just came out on Tuesday. Balfe's music helps to tell the story of the game, centered on a character named Jodie. And the music is brilliant.

Gustavo Santaolalla won back-to-back Oscars in 2006 and 2007, for Brokeback Mountain and Babel, respectively. And those sparse film scores are indicative of Gustavo's use of space in music  silence can be one of the most effective sounds to use in a video game.

Composer Jack Wall wrote two quite different soundtracks for Lost Planet 3  one takes the player through the battles and cinematics of Lost Planet, and one takes the main character back to Planet Earth.

British composer James Hannigan has scored just about every type of game imaginable, from the final four 'Harry Potter' games to terrifying 'Dead Space 3'. We talked about his newest project, a big online fantasy game called 'RuneScape 3'.

Kickstarter is a website allowing consumers to fund projects, including movies, games, conferences and everything else in between. "Skyrim" composer Jeremy Soule decided to use it to fund writing, recording and performing his Symphony No. 1.

Composer Penka Kouneva took two months between projects to write her own music, culminating in a CD called A Warrior's Odyssey . Emily Reese spoke with Penka about her music, and coming to the U.S. from Bulgaria.

Christopher Lennertz is a busy guy, working on multiple television projects like Supernatural and Revolution, in addition to writing music for games like Starhawk and Mass Effect 3. Hear the conversation on the new episode of Top Score from Classical MPR.

David Lloyd launched OCReMix.org in 1999 to create a site for fans to share their interpretations of game music. David and submissions judge Larry Oji joined Top Score for a conversation about fan art.

The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses is a musical celebration of twenty-five years of Zelda melodies. The new episode of Top Score features a conversation with the producers of the touring show, video game music fans Jason Michael Paul and Jeron Moore.

CleanInon Zur talks about Lord of the Rings: War in the North on Top Score

Inon Zur returns to Top Score from Classical MPR to talk about his new score to Lord of the Rings: War in the North. Enter the drawing for a chance to win the Xbox version of Lord of the Rings -- War of the North, plus the original game soundtrack by Inon Zur.

Composer Bear McCreary is our guest on Top Score this week from Classical MPR. I first became interested in his music through my adoration of the relaunched "Battlestar Galactica" series on SyFy. Lucky for me, Bear also scored two video games. Capcom's "Dark Void" from 2010, and Sony's "SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs."

Rockstar Games turned to Bill Elm and Woody Jackson to create the music for "Red Dead Redemption." On this episode of Top Score from Classical MPR, Elm discusses he and Jackson's background in the alt-country scene, his admiration for Italian film composer Ennio Morricone and more.

Episode Two of Top Score is all about Stacking, a delightful game with a classical soundtrack. Join Emily Reese for a conversation with Game Designer Lee Petty, Audio Director Brian Min and Composer Peter McConnell.

Award-winning composer Inon Zur writes music for video games like Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and the two most recent games in the Fallout series. He talks about his journey and his job on Top Score from Classical Minnesota Public Radio.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful

by
Mightytoast

Host has an excellent voice and interviewing style. She knows her subject matter and stays on topic. I also enjoy the musical excerpts!

Excellent

by
jrh388

Thank you so much for giving game soundtracks the respect and recognition they deserve. I really enjoy learning so many interesting details about the composers and what influences their work. A must-listen for any soundtrack or game enthusiast.

Great show

by
Gattacast

I love the respect that video game compositions are starting to receive. I also have a video game podcast that features game music. for those of you who want more ck out GATTACAST. Top Score is top notch quality though. Well done MNPR.